Presentation by Helen Kilmier – General Manager of Community Services Interact Australia at the My Home, Your Workplace...Disability & Sexuality Forum - Enabling people with disabilities to express and fulfill their sexual identity, needs and desires. Forum held on Wednesday 18 April 2012 Further information visit www.field.org.au

3.  Provider of disability services for 20 years in
Victoria & Queensland
 Bridging the Gap & STA House
 Intellectual Disability & Homelessness
 Job Services Australia & Disability
Employment Services
 Registered Training Organisation
 Strategic Policy, Planning & Research Unit

4.  Our Vision
Inclusive, accessible and healthy communities
 Our Mission
Interact Australia works to promote social
inclusion, health and wellbeing, prioritising
people with the highest needs and supporting
people to achieve their full potential.

5. In the realm of sexuality and disability there is public discourse
on deviance and inappropriate behaviour, abuse and
victimization, asexuality, gender and orientation, and
reproductive issues in women and men.
The pleasurable aspect of sex in our culture has been largely
ignored, vilified, or exploited. Our families, public schools,
religious institutions, and medical establishment have adopted
the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of sexual education.
Tepper, M.S. (2000). Sexuality and Disability: The Missing Discourse of Pleasure, Sexuality and Disability,
Vol. 18, (4).

6. One institution that has not ignored sexual pleasure is the
media. However, the media has exploited sexual pleasure for
gain. Sex is portrayed as a privilege of the white, heterosexual,
young, single and non-disabled. Sexual pleasure is held out as
a reward for buying the right product and targeted to markets
with the most disposable income.
Sexuality as a source of pleasure and as an expression of love is
not readily recognized for populations that have been
traditionally marginalized in society. Sexual portrayals of people
who are older, who are larger, who are darker, who are gayer,
who have mental health issues or a disability,or who just do not
fit the targeted market profile have been conspicuously
absent in mainstream media.

7. Pleasure is an affirmation of life. Pleasure is often defined as an
addition to life or a form of luxury rather than a centrally
motivating and defining feature of social action.
Pleasure adds meaning to our lives. Sexual pleasure is
particularly powerful in making one feel alive. It can add a sense
of connectnedness to the world or to each other. It can heal a
sense of emotional isolation so many of us feel even though we
are socially integrated. It can help build our immunity against
media messages that can make us feel as if we don’t deserve
pleasure.
We must be advocates for the inclusion of sexuality and sexual
health in disability studies, politics, public discourse and service
provision.

8.  Social Model of Health
 Human Rights
Family Planning Queensland
Every Body Needs to Know: A Sexual and
Reproductive Health Education Resource for
Teaching People with a Disability
http://www.fpq.com.au/publications/teaching
Aids/everybody_know.php

9.  Private Bodies
 Puberty
 Periods
 Relationships
 Sexual Relationships
 Pregnancy Information
 Feeling Good
 Being Safe
 Sexual Health Checks

10.  The Partnership:
◦ Interact Australia
◦ Odyssey House Victoria
◦ Taskforce Community Agency
◦ Youth Projects
 Working together for 4 years
 The Work of Stepping Up:
◦ Judy Lazarus Transition Centre (JLTC)
◦ Supported Transition Accommodation (STA)House
◦ Alcohol & Drug Services (therapeutic counselling,
consultancy and continuing care (CCCC) activity)

11.  To be a leading provider of therapeutic and
community based services to clients with
complex needs at the intersection of
addiction, disability, mental health,
unemployment and justice sectors by
identifying gaps in service provision and
developing innovative responses that deliver
improved client outcomes.

12.  The Partnership:
◦ Stepping Up Consortium
◦ Corrections Victoria
◦ Department of Human Services (Disability Services
Division)
◦ Yarra Community Housing
 The Accommodation:
◦ 10 bed residential
◦ Staffed 24/7
 A supported transitional accommodation and
support service for men with cognitive
impairment, exiting Victorian correctional
facilities

13.  By helping offenders to build the necessary conditions (i.e. internal and
external capacities) for meeting their needs in adaptive pro-social
ways, the associated effect is that they will be less likely to harm others
and themselves. As such, the enhancement of offender well-being (in a
goods promotion sense) directly functions to reduce risk and protect the
community. There are 11 basic human goods:
 Life
 Knowledge
 Excellence in play
 Excellence in work
 Excellence in agency
 Inner Peace
 Relatedness
 Community
 Spirituality
 Pleasure
 Creativity

14.  the emotional sense of feeling good in the present
time –the state of happiness
 The primary good of pleasure in this sense refers to a
state of being (feeling good in the here and now), and
the overall experience of being content with one’s
life. It is often reflected in feelings of pleasure and
deep satisfaction. Sometimes, the leisure activity may
be for its own sake, just because it brings joy to the
person in the present tense, and as such the activity
is really about pleasure.
 Instrumental goods may include engaging in sex,
enjoyment of food, massage or sport where the goal
sought is at least partly, a feeling of deep
contentment or pleasure.
 www.goodlivesmodel.com

15.  Shuttleworth, in his introduction to a recent issue of the
Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal, writes:
"It is impossible to do justice to all of the sexual issues
that are emerging as important for people with a disability.
But they include the following: access for women with a
disability to quality reproductive health care; the use of
sexual surrogates and sex workers; poor sexual self-
esteem and body image; lack of positive media images of
disability and sexuality; negative and non-supportive staff
attitudes toward the sexuality of disabled people;
difficulties in accessing interpersonal contexts in which
sexual relationships with others are usually cultivated;
disability fetishism; and the multiple oppressions that
ethnic and sexual minorities face."

16. Like many service providers, Interact has a long
way to go.
 Being genuinely self-directed and person-
centred
 Wrap Around Services
 Education
 Policies
 Recruitment
 Workplace Health & Safety